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A fighting stick for the Nintendo Switch's launch? It's possible—and that suggests a compatible game to pair with it, as well.

Let's look closer at the system's cartridges.

A different look, with a better sense of scale.

Gaming forum NeoGAF turned up more leaked images, including this pic of the system's apparent "share" button.

Normally, a giant printout of upcoming third-party game-console accessories isn't news. But when the system in question is the Nintendo Switch, which still hasn't received a full reveal, the newsworthiness of things like screen protectors and AC adapters increases.

Diehard Nintendo fans will be excited by Hori's accessories for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, especially those with a "March 2017" release date. While you may have little interest in decorating your Nintendo Switch with Zelda logos, such a release suggests that Breath of the Wild will launch on the same day as the hardware. (Releasing those decorations without a game to match would be a wicked thing for Hori to do.) Nintendo has yet to confirm a release date for Breath of the Wild, though recent reports from Eurogamer suggest that it will launch alongside the Switch, at least in the United States and Japan.

The documents also see Hori preparing a fighting-stick controller for the Switch. Again, a "March 2017" date is attached to one of the pamphlet's pages (specifically, a Zelda-themed one), which implies that all of the accessories might be slated to launch that day. Meanwhile, Let's Play Videogames' Laura Kate Dale tells Ars that she "100 percent expect[s] a fighting stick to hit at launch." (Dale has a good track record about Nintendo Switch rumors.)

If that's true, then a fighting game would make sense for launch. But no fighting-game leaks have emerged surrounding the Nintendo Switch, other than guesses that a Smash Bros. Wii U port may eventually land on the newer system. (My wild guess: Namco could have something in the works, considering its long friendship with Nintendo. The forthcoming Tekken 7? Another Pokken Tournament? Heck, maybe an out-of-nowhere update to the Soul Calibur franchise?)

Further Reading

Nintendo's sole sizzle-reel for the Nintendo Switch didn't show off the system's cartridges, which means the document from the French Twitter user may very well contain the world's first look at them. The Hori documents show a few unlabeled cartridges, which look very similar to 3DS carts, tucked into a 24-game carrying case. One other cart is tucked into a combination cartridge-controller carrying case, and this image does a better job offering scale for the sake of measuring a Switch cartridge's size.

The last kinda-new detail on display, from a different, color-image leak posted to the NeoGAF forums, is a cleaner look at the system's possible "share" button. This appears to be a square button with an indented circle. The design resembles the "record" button you might find on a VCR remote control, but the leaked documents and images do not confirm the button's name just yet.

Further Reading

I admit, digging into a peripheral-preview document is a bit desperate, but anticipation continues to mount for the console as its major reveal looms. Nintendo will host a major event this Thursday evening in Tokyo, scheduled for 11 pm Eastern time. Expect announcements about the system's price, release date, and launch games lineup. That reveal will be followed by hands-on press events in both London and New York the following day, and Ars' Mark Walton and Kyle Orland (respectively) will be in attendance. Keep your eyes here at Ars for details from every event.

Nintendo seems to have learnt from the Wii U (which flew under the radar of public consciousness, with many seemingly still convinced it is a peripheral).

The Switch send to be generating genuine interest. Even my casual "CoD and FIFA" relatives over Christmas actually knew there was a new Nintendo system coming out, which was a genuine surprise. The last time I heard them mention a Nintendo console was during the heyday of the Wii.

We are yet to see what the system actually delivers in terms of games and performance, but on the marketing front, Nintendo seems to actually have its act together.

As a mainly-PC gamer married to a Mario nerd, the latest Nintendo console will likely always sit below our TV. Pretty excited for the Switch, mostly because I'm hoping Nintendo will take advantage of its good third-party relationships on its portable system and be able to apply them to the higher power of the console. Hopefully, the fact that they're not introducing a major programming difficulty on this one (second screen, urge to have motion controls, etc) will hopefully encourage more third-party games to come to the system.

I admit, digging into a peripheral-preview document is a bit desperate, but anticipation continues to mount for the console as its major reveal looms.

No need to apologize. My wife has become a full-blown buddhist and has recently banned violent games from the house. Our two children are too young to see and play violent games anyway (although the 7 year-old *loves* watching me play Uncharted 4 for some reason). So I've been cautiously optimistic about getting a Switch, even though not the usual Ninety fan. It does seem well thought-through, and if they have a Super Mario Galaxy and a Kart game it can involve the whole family.

... I, of course, will sneak downstairs after the kids are in bed to play Dishonored 2.

What is it that leads some people to believe that a company (Apple, Nintendo etc) would ever intentionally not produce as many units as they can sell? Has a company ever been found doing this on purpose?

What is it that leads some people to believe that a company (Apple, Nintendo etc) would ever intentionally not produce as many units as they can sell? Has a company ever been found doing this on purpose?

Nintendo has a well documented history of doing this going back to the 80s. Usually it was in dictating to third parties how much cartridge production they could have. If Nintendo decided to short your order, your game could be aged out before you got another production slot. Then there was Nintendo dictating to companies how many games they could produce in a year, regardless of quality. They didn't want to allow any brand to become bigger than Nintendo itself. This is why many companies started separate brands for their products, such as Konami creating the Ultra brand for licenses (Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles) and ports (Metal Gear). (The company I worked for in the 80s had an NES game ported from the C64 licensed to Ultra.)

It isn't a mystery why Nintendo has been getting less and less third party support ever since Sega sued them and settled out of court during the SNES/Genesis era. Add to this the absurd censorship third party Nintendo publishers had to endure and it's mystery why so many companies had a love/hate relationship with them. Once Sega, then Sony and Microsoft, offered less restrictive venues, third party publishers have given far less power.

What is it that leads some people to believe that a company (Apple, Nintendo etc) would ever intentionally not produce as many units as they can sell? Has a company ever been found doing this on purpose?

Well, they're either shady or absolutely incompetent. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and figure they're doing some back room shit to make more money, rather than saying they're genuinely stupid and don't know how to run their business, despite having the same problem with every hardware release of note, even though the newest release has absolutely nothing about it that makes it hard to manufacture.

I admit, digging into a peripheral-preview document is a bit desperate, but anticipation continues to mount for the console as its major reveal looms.

No need to apologize. My wife has become a full-blown buddhist and has recently banned violent games from the house. Our two children are too young to see and play violent games anyway (although the 7 year-old *loves* watching me play Uncharted 4 for some reason). So I've been cautiously optimistic about getting a Switch, even though not the usual Ninety fan. It does seem well thought-through, and if they have a Super Mario Galaxy and a Kart game it can involve the whole family.

... I, of course, will sneak downstairs after the kids are in bed to play Dishonored 2.

I can understand not wanting to expose young children to anything to violent.

First off as a man who has been married a few times... wouldn't want to word anything too bluntly. As a fellow Buddhist I can tell you make belief and reality are for sure not the same thing. It is quite ok to enjoy movies and video games of any stripe and still walk the path. I mean I can only assume she is thinking about the first precept "Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami" which translates aprox to I shall abstain from taking life. Pana is describing "breathing" life... so make belief non breathing NPCs in a video game don't break any Buddhist rules.

I admit, digging into a peripheral-preview document is a bit desperate, but anticipation continues to mount for the console as its major reveal looms.

No need to apologize. My wife has become a full-blown buddhist and has recently banned violent games from the house. Our two children are too young to see and play violent games anyway (although the 7 year-old *loves* watching me play Uncharted 4 for some reason). So I've been cautiously optimistic about getting a Switch, even though not the usual Ninety fan. It does seem well thought-through, and if they have a Super Mario Galaxy and a Kart game it can involve the whole family.

... I, of course, will sneak downstairs after the kids are in bed to play Dishonored 2.

My partner was "full blown Buddhist", and would carefully catch mosquitoes in her bare hands and liberate them, still unharmed, outside the house if we spotted any, rather than let my lazy heathen ass squash them before they bit me.

She had no issues with watching me murder hordes in Uncharted, or slaughter monsters in Dark Souls. She did complain a bit with Pikmin 3, but only because everything looked too cute to ruthlessly destroy...

I guess with all things, there are degrees. After all, technically Super Mario Galaxy is a violent game (all those Goombas get squished, and those Wigglers get stomped enough to get pretty angry...).

A share button eh? Will ninty bring the money hammer down on videos of their games like they have been doing? Can't imagine sharing screenshots is going to be popular enough to dedicate a button to...

Maybe I'm living under a rock, but I see thousands of videos on YouTube with footage of Nintendo games. Mario Maker alone has plenty of YouTubers (and a ton of Twitch streamers) that put out content of their games every day.

Carefully arranged shows of violence or even torture can, theoretically, enhance moral compass and inspire someone to take firmer hold of their ethics. Carelessly arranged it can, theoretically, desensitize.

The concept is simple, the specifics aren't, and no doubt they vary by individual, and even then day to day. Something like "glorified vs vilified" is too blunt, but illustrates the idea.

It's too bad capitalism says there's no money in studying this, and tuning the media we drown ourselves in, that shape society. We've figured some out along the way, but thick basics like Crime Never Pays and Evil Always Loses aren't as potent on adults. Delivering "Drugs are bad" with the subtlety of a megaphone loses efficacy proportional to age, while more subversive manipulation (negative wording, why not) can evoke virtue and values of your own volition.

OT: It's harder for me to mock a Share button than it was a couple generations ago. Still eyerolling, but I can't deny what's just good business.

What is it that leads some people to believe that a company (Apple, Nintendo etc) would ever intentionally not produce as many units as they can sell? Has a company ever been found doing this on purpose?

Well, they're either shady or absolutely incompetent. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and figure they're doing some back room shit to make more money, rather than saying they're genuinely stupid and don't know how to run their business, despite having the same problem with every hardware release of note, even though the newest release has absolutely nothing about it that makes it hard to manufacture.

I'd rather be called an asshole than an idiot, I guess.

It is not about difficulty of manufacturing the devices. Companies will spend quite a lot of time working out exactly how many they are likely to sell on launch and will try to manufacture as close to that amount as possible as they want to have enough in the shops that they can sell and yet not have huge stockpiles which cost money to store. They also have to predict this a long time ahead of launch so if a marketing campaign goes particularly well then they will not be ready to supply the numbers they need. It is a delicate balancing act. Setting up a production line for something as complex as a computer console is not a quick task. Plus there is the issue with sourcing components, they need to make sure that the chip manufacturer can supply enough chips quick enough, the screen supplier needs to be able to supply all the screens etc, if any of these suppliers experience issues then the whole production run is affected. Microsoft famously paid for two chip fabs to be ready to produce the 360 chips despite the huge risk and cost involved, in the end this paid off as IBM had major issues producing the chips so they kicked in their other supplier to meet the demand. This is not the norm though as the cost of retaining a fabrication facility purely just in case it is needed is immense. Sony did not do this and had major issues with their supply of chips.

While is is not beyond a business to restrict production to raise value (ie diamonds, or oil, cars etc) and I don't doubt that some consumer product companies may well create an artificial NEED for something by restricting its production, I doubt any of the console manufacturers have ever done this on purpose as they need to sell as many as possible so they can sell more games (which they make more money off).

What is it that leads some people to believe that a company (Apple, Nintendo etc) would ever intentionally not produce as many units as they can sell? Has a company ever been found doing this on purpose?

A share button eh? Will ninty bring the money hammer down on videos of their games like they have been doing? Can't imagine sharing screenshots is going to be popular enough to dedicate a button to...

As someone who despises social media (yes, I have a Facebook account, registered ages ago - no I don't use it, haven't even put in a profile picture), that was my initial impression of a share button on a DS4. Surely I'll never use it.

But what do you know. It is fun to take screenshots for my personal amusement, and if there's an odd glitch in a game (they can be hilarious but easily forgotten) it is nice that the PS4 records the past 15 minutes of your activity, save the clip, trim and amuse your friends. I only wish there was an option to somehow upload said clip to something that is not Facebook or Twitter, so I wouldn't have to use an USB stick to get them out of the console (#firstworldproblems).

A share button eh? Will ninty bring the money hammer down on videos of their games like they have been doing? Can't imagine sharing screenshots is going to be popular enough to dedicate a button to...

As someone who despises social media (yes, I have a Facebook account, registered ages ago - no I don't use it, haven't even put in a profile picture), that was my initial impression of a share button on a DS4. Surely I'll never use it.

But what do you know. It is fun to take screenshots for my personal amusement, and if there's an odd glitch in a game (they can be hilarious but easily forgotten) it is nice that the PS4 records the past 15 minutes of your activity, save the clip, trim and amuse your friends. I only wish there was an option to somehow upload said clip to something that is not Facebook or Twitter, so I wouldn't have to use an USB stick to get them out of the console (#firstworldproblems).

A share button eh? Will ninty bring the money hammer down on videos of their games like they have been doing? Can't imagine sharing screenshots is going to be popular enough to dedicate a button to...

As someone who despises social media (yes, I have a Facebook account, registered ages ago - no I don't use it, haven't even put in a profile picture), that was my initial impression of a share button on a DS4. Surely I'll never use it.

But what do you know. It is fun to take screenshots for my personal amusement, and if there's an odd glitch in a game (they can be hilarious but easily forgotten) it is nice that the PS4 records the past 15 minutes of your activity, save the clip, trim and amuse your friends. I only wish there was an option to somehow upload said clip to something that is not Facebook or Twitter, so I wouldn't have to use an USB stick to get them out of the console (#firstworldproblems).

I upload mine to youtube...

I should have included that in the list... yes, Youtube is an option. But I don't care that much for it either. Something like Dropbox would be nice.

A share button eh? Will ninty bring the money hammer down on videos of their games like they have been doing? Can't imagine sharing screenshots is going to be popular enough to dedicate a button to...

As someone who despises social media (yes, I have a Facebook account, registered ages ago - no I don't use it, haven't even put in a profile picture), that was my initial impression of a share button on a DS4. Surely I'll never use it.

But what do you know. It is fun to take screenshots for my personal amusement, and if there's an odd glitch in a game (they can be hilarious but easily forgotten) it is nice that the PS4 records the past 15 minutes of your activity, save the clip, trim and amuse your friends. I only wish there was an option to somehow upload said clip to something that is not Facebook or Twitter, so I wouldn't have to use an USB stick to get them out of the console (#firstworldproblems).

I upload mine to youtube...

I should have included that in the list... yes, Youtube is an option. But I don't care that much for it either. Something like Dropbox would be nice.

I find Youtube perfectly good for this sort of thing. However I could see how dropbox or preferably google drive (i don't really like dropbox for some reason) would be a good option to have too.